■Everyone will sympathize. When we were tyros, we could be thoughtless and do carelessly. And we get older, the rushing blood becomes less.

T: Some give Mokely orders and I cannot say I never remember how to knit the work. Naturally, I must be more thoughtful than the older days. Recent works include dramas more, I think, just like repeating undoing and redoing.


■Like exhibitions overseas as Paris, Mokely has acted globally. Now your bases of working are in Tokyo and in United Kingdom. How were your knitted works influenced by that?

T: I little know what has changed because I have lived in U.K. for just a year. Feeling happy with living around Nature apart from the center, I have liked plants since I was a child. Worrying about losing some poisonous character Mokely’s existing works have, I am looking forward to the future knitted works from the natural surroundings.


■Only boring things can be born without poison, I see. But your works do not consist of just virulence, do they?

T: Of course, not.


■Then, let me ask. What do you keep in your mind as the most important thing on your knitting?

T: Steadiness is it. I have knitted sound things and will do in future. Most of my works show strange and loose forms. But they were knitted for being used and worn. Fragile and breakable articles are not what I would like to make, you know. I wish people use and wear my knitted works as longer as possible.


■Thank you for this interview.

T: Thanks. Toki Tomoko: a Knitting Artist
Mokely Official Site



Interview and Text by Misaka Youhei